Lady Hou first noticed something amiss with her body on the day Jiang Zhaohua suffered a miscarriage scare.
That day, Jiang Zhaohua had gone out to attend a banquet. No one knew what she had heard there, but the physician diagnosed her with severe fright, which had destabilized her pregnancy and caused relentless abdominal pain.
Young and inexperienced, Jiang Zhaohua was utterly panicked by the situation. She immediately sent her maids to deliver a message to Lady Hou.
Upon receiving the news, Lady Hou was horrified. She rushed to the palace to summon a royal physician, instructing him to go to the Duan Family to treat her daughter.
Lady Hou paced anxiously, but soon, word came from the physician—Jiang Zhaohua had taken medicine to stabilize the pregnancy and was temporarily out of danger.
"However, she must be extra cautious from now on. No exhaustion, and no emotional agitation," the physician reported back to Lady Hou at the Marquis's Mansion.
Lady Hou allowed herself a half-hearted sigh of relief. Glancing at the pitch-black sky outside, she longed to visit the Duan Family immediately but restrained herself.
It was too late tonight. If she rushed over in a frenzy, it might seem like she was going to demand answers, and Lady Hou worried Duan Jinxing would take offense.
A humble household like the Duan Family should have been beneath the Marquis's Mansion’s concern. But her son-in-law was the future prime minister, and for the sake of her daughter’s marital prosperity, Lady Hou had already begun treating Duan Jinxing with the utmost respect.
Since Zhaohua was safe for now, she would endure the night and visit first thing in the morning to get to the bottom of it. What on earth had Zhaohua heard at the banquet to frighten her so badly that she neglected the child in her womb?
Lady Hou was deeply troubled, expecting to lie awake until dawn.
Yet when her usual bedtime arrived, she fell into a deep, dreamless slumber almost instantly!
The next day, despite her plans to rise early and visit the Duan Family, she overslept—waking only at mid-morning!
Her face darkened as she scolded her maids, "Are you all fools? Not one of you thought to wake me?"
The maids protested meekly, "This morning, we tried for the longest time, my lady..."
But for some reason, Lady Hou had been impossible to rouse.
Her personal maid even pressed a damp cloth to her face. Yet instead of waking, Lady Hou grew agitated in her sleep—flailing her arms and even scratching one of the maids!
Lady Hou stared at them in disbelief. "Nonsense! I don’t remember any of you trying to wake me!"
She had merely been asleep, not unconscious. How could she not wake up from a cold, wet cloth?
But all the maids insisted, and the scratched one rolled up her sleeve to show the deep red marks on her arm.
At the sight, Lady Hou’s heart plunged into an icy abyss.
Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
Last night’s sleep had been unnatural. Normally, when burdened with worry, she suffered from insomnia. Yet despite her anguish over Zhaohua’s condition, she had fallen asleep instantly.
And today, with such an urgent matter weighing on her, how could she have overslept?
As she reflected further, Lady Hou realized her body’s oddities had been creeping in for a long time.
She used to suffer from restless nights, managing only three hours of fragmented sleep.
But ever since she began taking the medicinal soups offered by Concubine Qiao, the dreams stopped, and her sleep gradually lengthened—four hours, then five...
No, lately, even five hours hadn’t been enough. She now slept nearly six hours a day!
Half her day spent in slumber!
Lady Hou had initially dismissed it as her body making up for years of lost sleep. Only now did the horror dawn on her.
Frantic, she summoned the royal physician. "Physician, what illness afflicts me?"
After examining her pulse, the physician shook his head. "My lady is in good health. There is no illness."
Lady Hou insisted, "Impossible! If I weren’t ill, how could I sleep through my daughter’s crisis? How could my maids fail to wake me?"
The physician’s expression darkened. "Please, my lady, explain in detail."
Lady Hou recounted everything, and with each word, the physician’s face grew graver. This time, his examination took much longer.
"You are indeed not ill..." He paused. "You have been poisoned."
Lady Hou recoiled. "Poisoned? What poison? Is it serious?"
The physician replied, "The poison is called 'Dreamless'—a colorless, faintly sweet substance nearly impossible to detect."
"It is exceedingly rare, and its effects on the pulse are almost imperceptible. Had I not encountered a victim of this poison years ago, I might have missed it today."
Lady Hou pressed, "Can it be cured? Do you know the antidote?"
The physician hesitated. "The poison has seeped deep into your bones. I can neutralize seven-tenths of it, but the remaining three-tenths... are beyond remedy."
Lady Hou’s legs gave way. Had her maids not caught her, she would have collapsed.
"Three-tenths... permanently in my bones? What—what will happen?" Her voice trembled.
The physician reassured her, "Do not fear, my lady. If you maintain your health, the residual poison will never flare up. It will not harm you."
But Lady Hou was terrified.
Through tears, she demanded, "How must I 'maintain my health'? What if I fail? What then?"
The physician explained the nature of "Dreamless."
"The poison earns its name because its victims sleep without dreams. At first, the sleep is deep and refreshing, making it nearly impossible to detect..."
Lady Hou gasped—every symptom matched her experience!
"But over time, the victim grows increasingly drowsy. After half a year, there is no cure. They sleep over ten hours a day..."
Lady Hou paled. "You mean... barely two hours awake?"
The physician nodded. "Yes. And even those waking hours... are not lucid."
"Either in a daze... or outright madness."
Lady Hou slumped into her chair, whispering, "How vile... what a vicious poison..."
Had she not realized, in a few months, she would have been lost—sleeping ten hours a day, her brief waking moments spent in insanity or idiocy.
Madness or imbecility... a fate worse than death!
Seeing her distress, the physician urged, "My lady, you must calm yourself!"
"You asked how to maintain your health. The poison attacks the heart. You must avoid extreme joy or rage at all costs!"
"If you keep your emotions steady, the residual poison will never awaken."
"But if you suffer frequent emotional shocks, the poison may flare, and madness will follow."
Lady Hou forced herself to breathe slowly, struggling to regain composure.
What a vicious poison... To think she had been poisoned, yet she wasn’t even allowed to be angry?
The more Lady Hou thought about it, the more her fury burned within her.
"Concubine Qiao! It must be Concubine Qiao!"
When the imperial physician informed her that the poison "Dreamless" was colorless and slightly sweet, Lady Hou immediately recalled the medicinal soups Concubine Qiao had been delivering to her daily.
Every one of Concubine Qiao’s soups was sweet!
Her nights had become dreamless, her sleep growing longer and deeper—exactly since she started consuming those soups.
Lady Hou wished she could kill Concubine Qiao on the spot, but even that wouldn’t quell her hatred.
Yet she couldn’t kill her... not yet. She needed to interrogate her first—to uncover who had orchestrated this.
"Bring Concubine Qiao to me!"
"The empty woodshed in the west will serve as the interrogation chamber."
"Beat her with rods, whip her, prick her with needles, crush her fingers... Use whatever means necessary. I will have the truth of who ordered her to harm me!"
